Sibol (translated in English
as “growth”) is an apt reference to the national team as it signifies
not only the rise of e-sports around the world but also the advancement of e-sports
talent in the Philippines.

In charge of creating and
managing Sibol will be the Philippine Southeast Asian Games E-sports Union (PSEU),
a group under the Philippine Olympic Committee. PSEU is the product of the
partnership between the E-sports National Association of the Philippines (ESNAP)
and the Nationals E-sports Federation of the Philippines (NESFP).

Sibol will be competing in
all six titles featured in the e-sports event of the 30th SEA Games, which
include Dota 2, StarCraft II, Hearthstone, Arena of Valor, Mobile Legends: Bang
Bang, and Tekken 7.

Several Filipino e-sports
athletes will be given direct invite to the team’s training pool. Players from
MPL champion teams Bren Esports, Cignal Ultra, and ArkAngel will be invited to
the ML:BB pool.

Andreij “Doujin” Albar and Alexandre
“AK” Alvarez will be invited for Tekken 7, and Caviar “Enderr” Acampado will be
invited for StarCraft II.

Members of Liyab will be
invited into Arena of Valor, while Jacinta “Jia” Dee and Euneil “Staz” Javiñas
will be invited for Hearthstone. To round it up, players from TNC will be
invited to the Dota 2 pool, together with the Filipino players from the current
Mineski and Fnatic teams.

Any Filipino citizen over the
age of 13 can join the qualifier, which will happen on August 1-11. Updates on
the team and more information can be found on the official website sibolesports.ph
and on their social media pages (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) @SIBOLesports.

Once the Sibol training pool
is complete, managers and coaches will evaluate each player based on their
mastery of their respective e-sport title as well as their compatibility with
the rest of the team, among other factors. They will also be part of the
selection committee charged with trimming the pool down to the final roster.

The final Sibol roster for
the SEA Games will be composed of seven players each for team games (Dota 2,
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Arena of Valor), and two representatives for the
individual games (Tekken 7, Hearthstone, StarCraft II).

The 30th SEA Games will be
held in the Philippines from November 30 to December 11, 2019. The e-sports competition is scheduled from December 5 to 10,
2019 at the Filoil Flying V
Centre in San Juan, Metro Manila.

We strive to bring to local readers all the ICT news and product information relevant to the Philippines. We seek to cover the whole ICT spectrum — from consumer to the enterprise. READ MORE ABOUT NEWSBYTES.PH